How do I respect friends and family who openly spank but protect my kid from seeing it?

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Photo by Liz Henry, used under Creative Commons license.
In our family we are firmly anti-spanking, but we realize that many of our friends and family members are not. We respect that they're making decisions that work best for their families, but I don't want my son to see his friends or family members being spanked. I know at the very least it would confuse him, and at worst it would really scare him.

Whenever we're around spanking, part of me shrugs and thinks, "He'll see it eventually," but another part of me wants to FLOUNCE. I want to demonstrate a respectful response to my son, but I also want to balance my response with what I feel is best for my family.
Spanking parents: how would you like this situation handled? Non-spanking parents: how do you handle this if/when you encounter it? — Meg

Editor's note: we realize spanking is controversial and we leave it up to our readers to decide what works for their families. Any comments that condemn another family's choice and/or violate our comment policy will be removed.

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